On Media

'60 Minutes' continues to invite criticism

By HADAS GOLD

01/06/2014 05:33 PM EST

"60 Minutes," long the gold standard in television journalism, continues to find itself on the receiving end of a barrage of criticism.

On Sunday, "60" delivered its latest bait for critics with a piece about the Obama administration’s clean energy programs called "The Cleantech Crash." The segment detailed the struggles of clean-energy initiatives that have the backing of the federal government and Silicon Valley investors.

Even before it aired, green-energy backers condemned the segment as a “hit piece,” saying CBS had failed to acknowledge the initiatives’ successes — including a huge surge in electricity generation from renewable sources like solar and wind, a plunge in the prices of solar panels and LED light bulbs and the growing availability of electric cars. They also noted that the “60 Minutes” piece aired a day after The New York Times portrayed green energy as a big hit with private sector investors, writing that a “solar power craze … is sweeping Wall Street” while the electric car manufacturer Tesla Motors is “a market darling.”

Still, the Energy Department was clearly concerned by the high-profile smackdown — enough to send out a rebuttal around 11 p.m.

Guillén also breaks down several claims that correspondent Lesley Stahl made in the segment, which can be true or false depending on the definition of some key terms, like "clean," "created" and "many."

The report comes in the wake of Lara Logan's now-retracted Benghazi piece; the fawning Jeff Bezos interview; and an unquestioning NSA segment by John Miller, a correspondent who has since gone to work for the NYPD.